New BlackBerry Bold gets iPhone-like reception at Indonesia launch

Indonesia BlackBerry Bold launch triggers customer frenzy

It was a scene normally reserved for the latest Apple Inc. gadget.

But in Jakarta, capital city of Indonesia, the mass of 3,000 people swarming outside a posh shopping mall early Friday morning were not waiting to buy an iPhone. They were waiting, some having been there all night according to the Associated Press, to buy the BlackBerry Bold 9790 from Research In Motion Ltd. on the device’s first day of availability in the South Asian state of 240 million.

And when rumour spread by early morning that the latest Canadian smartphone had already sold out, the previously orderly lineup fell into violent disarray.

Several would-be BlackBerry buyers were reportedly injured while several others fainted from the crush of the crowd as hundreds of local riot police sought to contain the melee. Likely fuelling the agitation was a promotion offering the first 1,000 buyers of the new touchscreen bold — also known as the BlackBerry Bellagio — a 50% discount on the normally US$540 device.

“There were scuffles because people who arrived last night were placed at the end of the line,” eyewitness Janjuk Setiawan told local media.

While RIM executives would undoubtedly deplore the acts of physical aggression, the scene was nonetheless a welcome one for the Waterloo, Ont.-based company, which has watched its all-important North American market share plummet in recent months. Market watchers, as well as RIM’s management, have long been urging BlackBerry bulls to look to emerging smartphone markets to witness signs of the company’s ongoing strength.

Now, it seems, those BlackBerry bulls have been given quite a sight to see. See the video embedded below if you don’t believe the hype.

BlackBerry users in Indonesia number about six million, the AP reports, giving RIM a dominant position in the country’s smartphone market. RIM had approximately 70 million subscribers worldwide when the company last reported the figure, though it is in the Asian and Latin American markets where the BlackBerry user base is growing the fastest.